Water, Bubbles and Blisters

I initially looked up bubbles, but came across information about water blisters on feet and hands, which are called dyshidrotic eczema, which coloured me surprised – I’m not into all the medical terminology stuff – so I catalogued it under ‘ew topics’.

Anyhow, I looked a little further and established that blisters are not really filled with water but with serum or plasma, as says Wiki:

A blister is a small pocket of fluid within the upper layers of the skin, typically caused by forceful rubbing (friction), burning, freezing, chemical exposure or infection. Most blisters are filled with a clear fluid called serum or plasma.

It gets more revolting after that, mentioning blood blisters and worse, but me, not having the strongest stomach, I zoned out immediately. As I said – ew.

But what about bubbles? What makes a bubble … um … bubble?

I had this idea that finding out about bubbles would make for some light reading and none of this scientific argy bargy – boy, was I ever wrong. Good heavens, its all equations and algebra and weird symbols – not at all what I thought.

I did learn a new word (WORD) though.

Entrain: to draw in and transport (as solid particles or gas) by the flow of a fluid.

To draw along with or after oneself. See below:

In simple speak, a bubble forms for a variety of reasons, essentially; the bubbles form as air is entrained in the water during the pouring process. The key factor here is how fast the bubbles collapse. This may seem a funny distinction, but bubbles are always thermodynamically unstable compared to the bulk liquid because it always costs energy to create them. The only reason we see long lived bubbles is that there is a kinetic barrier that stops the water films collapsing.

I hope that this has eddicated you all a bit. As for me, I think I’m just going to go back to blowing bubbles or making bubbles in the bottled water cooler when I gloomph it or, using bubble bath or …. drinking bubbly … yes, that sounds more like my world.